


They Heard Me Singing and They Told Me to Stop

by magicites



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, An AU where the colossal titan isn't a colossal dick and ruins everything, Multi, You know what just about every main character shows up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-19
Updated: 2013-07-29
Packaged: 2017-12-20 16:28:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/889396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicites/pseuds/magicites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>"if you want to leave, all you have to do is say so."</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Eren Jeager's quest for peace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. these days my life, I feel it has no purpose

**Author's Note:**

> It took me a week after finishing the multi-chaptered monster of a fic, one that took up almost an entire year of my life, before I started another one. Hopefully this one won't be nearly as long. Hopefully it'll be about 40k at the most. Really, I wanna aim for about 20k, but lol, that probably won't happen.
> 
> Um, ships are subject to be added? So Levi/Hanji and some Annie + Bertholdt + Reiner stuff may happen, I'm not entirely sure if I can work those in or not. They all come in later chapters, I promise.
> 
> As the tags say, this takes place in an AU where the walls never fell.

In fairy tales, sunrises are special events. They creep up from below the horizon, blessing the land with light and life. The first rays are special – magic, even, turning poor girls to princesses and monsters to harmless shadows. Maybe it’s because this light serves as a brief, fleeting union between the sky and land, a marriage of two endless realms. Maybe it’s because of the beauty captured in that moment as colors scatter across the sky, banishing shadows with a clear, fluid stroke that paintings can never truly replicate.

You’ve never had the chance to see that magic with your own eyes. When dusk fades away, there are only the looming shadows of the walls to greet you. Your sunrise is belated, rising over the top of a stone fence long after the sky has grown light.

It’s still beautiful in your eyes.

 

.

 

It happens just a few days after you turn eleven.

You aren’t there when it happens (the knowledge that this could have been avoided if only you were there haunts you at night for years afterward. It is your biggest regret), so you only know of the aftereffects.

It starts with Armin standing in the doorway, fat tears streaming down his cheeks as he frantically pulls at you. There is fear in his eyes, panic in his voice; you can’t understand a word he says. He’s practically choking on his sobs, breath catching in his throat as he wails out gibberish.

Doctor Jeager’s voice floats in from another room, stern but worried. “Mikasa, what’s the matter?”

“I’m not sure. I can’t understand a thing he’s saying.”

A moment later, he’s crouched beside you, watching Armin with the same distant, clinical attention he gives his patients. “If only Carla wasn’t out shopping,” he murmurs, and somehow, you know his words are not meant for any ears, “she handles kids so much better than I do.”

Armin’s shaking in place, body wracked by violent tremors. “E-e-e-“ he stammers out, the vowel catching on his throat over and over. He sounds broken.

“Wait.” You seize him by the shoulders, and the movement is enough of a shock to freeze him in place. He is a cornered deer, and you are the hunter. “Eren’s hurt, isn’t he.”

Armin’s broken wail is all the confirmation you need.

Doctor Jeager stands up. “Armin, show me where he is. Mikasa, stay here,” he orders, and the next time you blink, they’re gone, running down the street. If it were anyone else, you’d be right there with them, sprinting as if your life depended on it, but you trust them enough to keep him safe.

You become a shadow on the wall when he returns, and you take in as much of the picture unfolding before you as you can: Eren sitting on a stool as Doctor Jeager scolds him, one hand firmly clasped over his right eye; his clothes ripped to shreds; the exposed skin beneath covered in blood and bruises; leaves and twigs tangled in his hair that Carla works at tirelessly, a timid mouse grooming imperfections out of its offspring’s fur.

Eren fights with every ounce of strength in his body when Doctor Jeager tries to check for any other serious wounds, lashing out like a cornered animal. His father escapes with three long scratches running down his cheek and a purple bruise blooming on his chin; Eren escapes without dinner.

 

.

 

“I’m fine,” he says that night, muttered in a hasty attempt to cheer Armin up. They sit on the floor together, back to back, snuggled underneath a threadbare blanket that they wrap around themselves like a makeshift cloak.

(Its color is just a few shades off from the cloaks of the Scouting Legion. It’s the blanket they dig out whenever they’re together. You hide it away when you can.)

“But you landed right on your arm-“

Eren interrupts him with a harshly growled, “I said I’m _fine_.”

“You lost your eye,” you snap, pointing to the bandages wrapped tightly around his head. Flashes of white peek out from underneath his scruffy hair. Your voice is completely level, carefully measured apathy, when you speak. “They won’t let you join now, you know.”

“Bullshit!” He shouts, lunging forward a few centimeters, as if he actually thinks that he could ever intimidate you. “You’ll see, Mikasa. I don’t need good depth perception to be a good soldier. They have to accept me once they see that I can still fight!”

Armin starts with a heavy sigh but finishes with a pained yelp, and his quiet wheezing is enough to tell you that Eren’s fed up with both of your protests.

“Eren, we’re just worried about you!” Armin insists.

“There’s no need to be worried!” He retorts angrily. “I don’t need to be babied by either of you!”

“Fine,” you shrug. “Goodnight, Eren.”

 

. 

  

He isn’t fine at all.

He manages to hide a broken arm for three whole weeks underneath long sleeve shirts and a fierce attitude that rears its violent head whenever anyone gets too close to him.

It’s not until the two of you are out collecting wood that the truth finally comes stumbling out into the open, ugly and all too real. He can’t pick up a branch, no matter how hard he tries. One hand, his left, is wrapped tightly around it, but the other one hovers right above, a hook that just can’t catch its target.

You know better than to say anything and risk him running away, so you grab the branch from him and hook it onto his back. When you return home with enough firewood to last a solid two weeks, you interrupt Carla’s praise by grabbing Eren and shoving his sleeves up.

Carla’s eyes widen, and she lets out a choked yelp. Eren’s panics, his entire body thrashing in your grip, struggling to break free. “I’m fine, I promise! Don’t tell Dad, please!”

 

.

 

Eren’s sitting on the stool again. His sniffles echo through the empty house, and halfway down the stairs you crouch down and decide that getting a glass of water will have to wait until later.

“You should have told me sooner, Eren!”

“I thought I’d be fine!” He replies, voice cracked with delicate lines of pain. “I thought it’d heal on its own!”

A bitter sigh. “You don’t realize what this means, do you? If you had told me sooner, even after it got infected, I could have saved it!”

The stool clatters to the ground, a broken sound of disbelief. “No! It’ll be fine!”

“I’d rather you lose half your arm than your life, Eren!”

“But-“

“-but nothing. This is your only choice.”

A dull thud. A punch muffled in cloth. Eren cries, in the broken way children do during fits. He’s still a child; so are you, even if you can’t remember the last time you felt like one.

“I’m sorry, Eren,” Doctor Jeager mutters, “but at least this means your mother won’t have to worry next year when the recruiters come.”

No child deserves to have their dreams crushed with that level of intensity, a single, mortal stab straight to their heart, but that doesn’t stop the relief from flooding through your veins at the news.

 

.

 

You learn the full story from Armin over the course of a few months, given to you in bits and pieces that only leave you wanting more.

Eren had been climbing a tree near one of the walls, and wouldn’t come down no matter how hard Armin tried to persuade him. There was a hole in the wall, apparently, higher up than Armin could see, and he wanted to look through it, see his first real glimpse of the word beyond the walls.

Every branch sagged with his weight, unable to fully support a boy with ambitions far too big for his small body, but neither of them expected one to snap so easily.

He didn’t hit the ground with both eyes still in his head, according to Armin. He had tried to tuck and roll on the way down, minimize the damage, but he judged wrong, and his right forearm took much more of the impact than it ever should have.

“I should have said something!” Armin’s hands are in his hair, pulling at clumps in a way that can’t be pleasant, and he’s yelling, but his voice is still too young, too high, to carry any kind of weight. “I could have helped!”

You shake your head. “He wouldn’t have accepted it.”

“I don’t deserve to call myself his best friend.”

Your gaze hardens. “If that’s true, then I don’t deserve to call myself his family.”

 

.

 

The recruiters come. There’s no real need for them to be here, but it gives members of the Stationary Guard something to do, even if only for a couple of weeks. In typical fashion, they tend to slack off.

Hannes is no better than the rest, regardless of how much the Jeagers respect him. He’s sprawled out in the kitchen, boots casually perched on the table as Carla fixes him a cup of coffee. You sit at a table a few meters away, and listen to them chat as you sew up a patch in one of your shirts.

“It’s not like we even need new recruits,” he explains. “The wage is good enough to encourage kids from poorer villages to join, and both the Military Police and our section have an incredibly low casualty rate. The Scouting Legion, on the other hand…”

Carla’s shoulders stiffen, and coffee spills over the top of the mug she was pouring into. “I’m sorry. Let me clean this up,” she mutters, reaching for a towel.

Hannes must be tipsy, you decide, since it takes him far longer than necessary to register her unease. “I apologize for mentioning that, Carla. Both of your children wanted to join, didn’t they?”

“No." 

Her lie convinces no one. Hannes continues on without acknowledging it, swiveling his head in your direction. “Mikasa, didn’t you want to join the Scouting Legion?”

“No,” you reply. There’s no reason to now. You’d only join if Eren did, but that’s no longer a possibility.

“Smart girl,” he says, “joining that faction means signing up for an early death.” He clears his throat, and shifts until his feet are back on the floor, solidly grounding himself in the process. “What about Armin? Do you know if he’s enlisting?”

“I hope not.”

“I’ll talk to his mother,” Carla mutters. “The military is no place for a boy like him.”

 

.

 

The half of Eren’s right arm that’s still intact hangs limply by his side most days. Today, he flails it around wildly, carelessly, as he paces in front of Armin. The end of his sleeve flutters around, delaying his movements just enough for you to notice the difference between his arms. The sight makes a heavy pit of guilt settle in your stomach.

“I can’t believe you’re still enlisting! They’ll kill you out there!” Eren shouts. There’s a jealous fire in his eyes, and you think that must be why he refuses to look straight at Armin. He’s concerned for his best friend’s safety, but it’s not the only thing fueling his anger.

“Maybe they will, but I need to get stronger,” Armin insists, his hands tightly clenched fists at his sides. He looks down, maybe hoping that neither of you will notice the tear tracks on his cheeks.

“That’s stupid!”

“I have to do this, Eren. I have to do it for myself. Even if you and Mikasa aren’t there, I’ll be ok.”

You keep your mouth shut. Eren’s breaths come out of his nose in loud, harsh puffs of air, more animalistic than human. He wants to say something, but you shoot him a look, and he makes no further protests.

 

.

 

The day Armin leaves for the Trainee Corps, Eren doesn’t leave your shared room. He doesn’t eat, doesn’t move, doesn’t act like he’s still alive.

When you ask him if he’s coming with you, he snarls out a bitter, “ _fuck Armin_ ,” and stays curled underneath the blanket he took from your bed.

“You’re being a jerk,” you tell him.

“Better than being an idiot!” His words are harsh, but his voice breaks, and you have no choice but to leave the room when you hear his quiet sniffles. He’ll heal with time, you hope. They’re too close for Eren to let something as stupid as this fight come between them.

When you get to Armin’s house, you walk inside without bothering to knock. His family knows you well, and his grandfather greets you warmly when he sees you walk into the main room.

“Armin’s in his room, packing the last of his things,” he says. There’s pride in his eyes, and the smile on his face is small but genuine.

Armin’s room has never been big nor heavily furnished, but without multitudes of books littering the floor (all forbidden, full of heretical words that Armin devours with an intensity that almost scares you), it looks bare. He sits on top of a taped up box, clad in his best clothes. His white button down practically gleams in the morning light.

“Mikasa!” He says your name as if it’s a shock to see you here, and takes a step back, trying to put distance between the two of you without making it too obvious.

“I don’t hate you,” you say.

“I know, but…”

“I’m not mad, either.”

He forces himself to smile; the corners of his lips shake. “I’m glad. Is Eren…?”

“He’ll be fine.”

The façade drops. Armin’s strength, crafted from false confidence, shatters, and he sags down until he’s sitting on the box again. He looks the most childish out of the three of you, with a round face and huge, watery eyes that normally belong on a porcelain doll.

You take a step forward, and grab his hand in yours. He looks up and blinks, dark eyelashes fluttering against pale skin.

(Sometimes you wonder if he really isn’t a walking doll, some fragile thing to be handled with the utmost care. He’ll break if you push too hard; you’d do anything to keep him in one piece.)

“Good luck out there.”

“Thanks.”

The fact that he desperately needs all the luck he can get if he wants to make it through three years out there, completely alone and out of his element, goes without saying. He already knows.

 

.

 

That winter, all of Shiganshina experiences a coal shortage. Firewood becomes a luxury that few can enjoy, and despite Doctor Jeager’s status and relative wealth, your family still spends many nights cold and shivering.

Spare items, anything that can keep a decent fire going, burn without a second thought. 

Eren is the one to toss that ratty, forest green blanket he used to love so much into the blaze.

You watch wings float up and fly away in the tendrils of flame.

 

.

 

You fondly remember the days when it was a chore just to get Eren to come inside. He used to stay outside long past dark, long past Carla’s calls growing more and more irritated until she had no choice but to march outside and drag him to bed without any dinner.

Now, it’s a chore just to get him to leave your room. On bad days, he lays in bed, a breathing corpse. You’re not even sure if he’s conscious when you drag him down the stairs. You force him to eat, to bathe, to survive. Carla watches with pain in her eyes, and Doctor Jeager promises that he’ll find a cure.

You tell him it’s pointless. No medicine can cure heartbreak.

It’s not all bad. Eren has good days, too. Days when he opens the window as wide as it’ll go are the best ones.

He watches the birds more than anything else.

 

.

 

Near the end of spring, you wake up to the sound of chirping. It’s muffled, but the birds force the sounds out of their throat in desperate squeals. You hear them not because of the power of their voices, but the strength of their pleas.

“Mikasa! Good, you’re awake,” Eren says. He’s at the window, tugging uselessly at it. “Help me open this, will you?”

You yawn, and get up on your feet. When you work together, the window slides open with only a single, squeaky protest.

 Eren pokes his head outside, neck craned so he can look up at the underside of the roof. The chirping is much louder now. “So I was right,” he turns back to look at you, “they built a nest right above us.”

“Mmm,” you reply.

“Don’t tell Mom or Dad, ok? I don’t want the birds to leave just yet.”

You consider his request, and find no real reason to say no. “Alright.”

It may be because you’re barely awake and there’s too much light in the room for you to keep your eyes fully open, but for once, Eren looks normal. Not exactly happy, but not sad.

He looks at peace.

 

.

 

Most people don’t visit the town library. Adults don’t have the time; kids don’t have the patience. It still has a librarian – an old, aged woman, one married not to another person but to that lonely building and every item within – but she spends her time working alone now.

(Armin used to be her main visitor, but he’s gone now, trying to find worth in a place where his biggest strength has limited benefits. You prefer not to think about it, even if the pain of forcing yourself to forget hurts more than missing him ever could.)

The first time Eren leaves the house of his own free will is for a trip to the library. You walk with him, his lone hand in one of yours. He holds onto you as if you’re the only thing tying him to the ground.

He checks out an entire encyclopedia on birds.

 

.

 

The chicks are still too young to leave the nest. Eren scatters sunflower seeds across the windowsill, trying to bait the parents into visiting him.

He sits on the floor and watches them closely. “How far away am I from them?” He asks. “I can’t tell.”

“About a meter,” you reply. “They’ll fly away if you come any closer.”

He nods, focusing his attention back down to the book in his lap. His finger slides across the page. “What species do you think they are?” He asks. “I think they may be robins.”

You don’t give an answer. Birds were never your favorite animal.

 

.

 

Eren leaves the house more often now. It’s not a daily occurrence, but it’s often enough to make Carla beam with joy whenever she sees his feet touch the worn paths outside. He no longer takes the steps two at a time, but it’s a start.

The other kids don’t hide their stares. He wears his scars with pride, but even in the middle of summer, he hides his stump of an arm under long sleeves and covers his lost eye with strips of brown cloth.

“It happened because you’re a freak, Jeager,” one has the gall to say. Eren stays still. “You and that heretic were always freaks, but at least he was sent off to the military to get some sense beaten into his head the hard way.”

Eren lunges, and pushes the boy up against the nearest wall using only his body weight. His forearm cuts across his neck, but the other boy grins.

He doesn’t have time to knee Eren in the stomach before you’re at his side, roughly shoving Eren out of the way. You slam the boy up against the wall, and unlike before, his eyes go wide with fear.

“M-Mikasa—“ he stammers, and before he can finish his sentence, your fist plunges into his face.

 

.

 

“I don’t need your help, Mikasa,” Eren says. “I can take care of myself.”

You shake your head. “No you can’t.”

“ _Why_?” He asks bitterly. “Because I’m a fucking cripple?”

“Because you’ve never been able to.”

 

.

 

Once upon a time, Doctor Jeager promised to show Eren what hides in the basement. When he returned from town, he once said. Then he’d give Eren the key.

He never did. You still see it on the rare moments when Doctor Jeager lets his guard down long enough to expose a hint of gold metal around his neck. Eren stopped asking about it long ago, and though you’re still curious, you usually refrain from asking.

You give in only once, on a chilly autumn day that gives you an extra justification for the scarf eternally wrapped around your neck.

Maybe your curiosity is subconsciously heightened because this time of year always reminds you of Armin, and of birthday parties consisting of the three of you huddled together, roasting snacks over an open fire. Maybe it’s due to the leaves that flutter weakly above your heads, almost – but not quite – ready to finally leave their home, and the fact that their color shines like gold in the evening light.

Whatever the reason, it prompts you to ask, “why do you always keep the basement locked? What’s down there?”

His sigh makes his entire body slump, as if he tried to push an unseen weight off of his shoulders with that single movement. It doesn’t work, and the hand that lands on top of your head is rough and heavy. “It doesn’t matter now, Mikasa. All we can do is enjoy the peace we’ve been given.”

“That makes no sense.”

“It’s better that way,” he says, and that’s the end of that conversation.

When you get home, he locks the basement one final time, and rips the key off of its cord. He tosses it into the fire, and doesn’t look back as it melts.

There’s a helpless pain in Eren’s eyes as he crawls toward the flame. He reaches out for it, and you slap his hand away before he can burn himself.

 

.

 

There are nights when you wake up to quiet sobs. Eren tries to mask them, biting his hand so hard that you can see the imprints of his teeth there the next morning, but it never seems to work.

You lay in bed, and wish that you could do something to help.

If only you had been there.

 

.

 

Things you get on your 13th birthday include: several different spools of thread in colors you had previously assumed to be impossible to find, a new jacket to help you through winter, a pocketknife with your name engraved on it.

Armin standing on your doorstep, bruised and bloody and so, so impossibly small.

He grins, and there’s a gap in his smile that wasn’t there when he left. “Hi, Mikasa,” he says. “I guess Eren was right all along.”

“Armin,” you whisper. He lets out a shocked yelp as you pull him inside and into your arms. His head fits perfectly under your chin, like he was never supposed to belong anywhere else but right here. “You’re home.”

“Not exactly,” he whispers. “My parents don’t know I’m here yet. I’m not sure if I should even go back, actually.”

You pull away just enough to examine him. Your eyes linger on every rip in his uniform, every torn belt, every flash of skin that you shouldn’t be able to see. The patch on his jacket limply hangs off his chest, only attached by a few stubborn threads laced around the bottom.

It hits you all too fast. “You quit?”

He nodded. “Too many training accidents, and not enough reason to stay there,” he says blankly, but what you hear is, “ _there was no reason to stay without you two there._ ”

Your hands link with his, fingers laced tightly together, and you lead him upstairs. He looks at his surroundings with wide eyes, and you’re certain he’s searching for any changes that occurred in the year and a half he was gone.

He finds them in Eren, in the way that his face is a stormy cloud of emotions. “You’re back,” he says.

Armin hums, and you think it’d sound like _yes_ if he could work up the courage to open his mouth.

“Welcome back,” Eren says, eyes drifting down to the book in his lap – a new one he found, all about the songbirds you hear all over town in the spring. It’s not welcoming at all.

“I’ll walk you home,” you turn to Armin, and lead him out before Eren can see him cry.

 

.

 

They begin to talk again, but their friendship is unsteady, constantly battered by unspoken thoughts that weather on both of their minds. You don’t know how to fix it without making it worse.

You see how Eren looks at Armin’s Trainee jacket, with the same fiery, jealous desire starving orphans have when they see warm, happy families on cold nights.

He glares at his arm like it’s a curse, slaps a hand over his makeshift eyepatch as if it’s a secret he locks away deep in his heart.

Armin notices, as he’s prone to do. He’s always been good with people, and he’s the best with Eren.

“Sometimes I wish I could apologize,” he confesses, when it’s just the two of you maneuvering through a crowded marketplace.

(No one pays any mind to him, anymore. He’s just another failure, another weakling unfit to protect anyone else. They’re all wrong, you want to say. Armin’s strength just lies in other areas.)

“Apologize for what?”

“That’s the thing,” he says, and his smirk is bitter, “I don’t know.”

 

.

 

Armin still loves stories. Eren still loves hearing them. They lay down, curled together like newborn kittens, as Armin whispers story after story into his eats. He tells him of the multitude of new books he’s found, and the ones he managed to smuggle home with him. “No one will miss them,” he promises. “They’ll be appreciated here.”

Eren is always bright and intense during these moments. His entire mind is wrapped up in the tale, and the smiles he doles out like gifts are always genuine. They’re so contagious, and even when you don’t share their enthusiasm, you often find yourself right next to them, your shoulder pressed to Eren’s and your head resting on Armin’s knee.

“When did you start liking birds, Eren? I don’t remember you ever caring for them as much as you do now,” Armin notes in a whisper, pale eyes reflecting the moonlight streaming in through the window. His curiosity, his intelligence, shine like stars in the sky.

Eren shrugs. “Who knows.”

There’s a part of you that wants to chide Armin for being so dense. It’s not that he loves them; he’s jealous of them. Jealous of their ability to go anywhere they desire.

He’ll pick up on it soon enough, you hope. He hasn’t been home for long, after all, and he’s not around Eren as much as you are.

“Oh,” Armin says, perking up slightly, “did I ever tell you about the crows at the training grounds? They’re the biggest birds I’ve ever seen!”

Eren stiffens, almost imperceptibly. Your hand slips forward to hold his, and it’s nothing more than a light touch. He shifts until you two are locked together, and squeezes so hard it hurts.

 

.

 

Your daily routine is simple, straightforward: wake up, wake Eren up, eat breakfast, spar with the older boys in town (you always make sure that Eren isn’t around for this) so you can keep your strength up, help with laundry, collect any materials Carla needs you to, embroider.

You always end the day with embroidery. You sit at Doctor Jeager’s desk on the days that he’s busy, working by candlelight to create simple designs. Your favorite thread, a pale pink with a slight shimmer to it, is the first to run out. You’re in the middle of embroidering a small flower onto one of Carla’s hats when this happens, and, with no other choice readily available, you mix your white and red threads together, intertwining them so thoroughly that they give the illusion of that same pink.

Surprisingly, it works. That discovery leads to a desire to mix every color you have to see just what you can make.

When you mix together your blue, the color Armin fondly says is the same color as the ocean waves, and your green, the shade of healthy leaves in a sprawling, wild forest, you end up with a color that’s the same shade as Eren’s eyes.

 

.

 

When he is fourteen, Eren begin to drift again. He disappears often, leaving the house without a single word to anyone within.

You always look for him. You ask around town – ask the shopkeepers he visits the most, ask the old women who watch him with disgust when he passes by, ask the boys just a few years older than you who sneer at him every chance they get, ask the members of the Stationary Guard that watch him with pitiful expressions, like he’s a dog just waiting to be put down.

He’s at Wall Maria’s gate, they usually say, and add, keep an eye on him.

Eren sits not in front of the gate itself, but in the crook of a tree, his single intact arm wrapped around the trunk. He looks off into the distance, glassy and unaware of his surroundings.

 "Eren,” you say, shaking his shoulder until he snaps into reality and looks up at you. His eyepatch is worn by age and carelessness. He desperately needs a new one. “Carla’s wondering where you are. She wants you home.”

He looks to the wall looming above your heads. It blocks out the sun. “We’re nothing but fucking cattle,” he mutters, fist clenched so tightly that his knuckles turn bone white. “Useless fucking cattle, trapped within this tiny town. We’ll never get out.”

 You take a step towards him, rest one hand on his shoulder, and slap him so hard his eyepatch comes loose. His entire body recoils from the hit, and though your hand stings, you ignore the pain.

He sits up again, slowly. His glare is entirely made of pained rage, and he cups his cheek for a brief second before fixing his eyepatch.

He hasn’t left Shiganshina in years – neither have you. If it was entirely your decision, you’d be content with staying here for your entire life. The people are kind, and over the years, you’ve become just another piece of this town’s puzzle. There’s a place for you here, a home to come back to, and people who genuinely love you. You don’t need anything else.

But Eren’s never been content with that. He desires exploration, adventure; the surge of adrenaline rushing through his veins. He can’t find that here.

Above all, your loyalty lies with him. You’ll follow him to the ends of the earth, if he ever decides to take that journey.

But for now, you grab his hand, and lead him through the gate, into the lands safely tucked away behind Wall Maria.

“If you want to leave,” you tell him, as he head whips around wildly, irritation written into the tense lines of his body (and maybe, disappointment that there’s no difference between here and Shiganshina), “all you have to do is say so.”

 

.

 

Eren travels to the wall more often. His gaze lingers on the carts that pass in and out of the gate.

His parents often give him an allowance, consisting of leftover change they manage to gather throughout the days. Before, he’d always spend it on any small trinket or piece of food that caught his eye.

(Knick-knacks no longer litter your shared bedroom. He shoved them away into boxes long ago, though he’s never thrown them out. You know what’s inside: wooden carvings of soldiers, miniature replicas of their 3d maneuver gear, symbols from each of the three factions.

A small statue of Lance Corporal Levi, now broken in half.)

Now, he saves every bit of money he gets.

Neither of you tell him, but you and Armin do the same.

 

.

 

You’re all fourteen when you pool your money together to buy a cart. It’s simple, but sturdy, with a large tarp stretched over the back that’s thick enough to survive even the harshest of storms.

“It’s perfect!” Eren says, completely in awe. He clambers onto the front, perches on the edge, and pretends to direct a team of horses. His single arm cracks invisible reins, and you feel a sharp ache in your chest. Armin scrubs furiously at his eyes, trying to hide tears.

“All we need are a few horses, right?” Eren asks, slipping off the cart to run to you guys. He’s taller than Armin – you both are – but he stands at the same height as you. “We can go once we get them, right?”

Armin nods. “We can get them soon,” he promises.

 

.

 

Doctor Jeager and Carla cry when you ask for two of their horses. Guilt rises in your throat like bile, but you’ve already made your choice.

You need to do this for Eren.

 

.

 

For Eren’s birthday, you give him a new eyepatch. It’s made of thick, black cloth; the old woman you bought it from boasted its durability. What makes it special, though, is the outline of a sharp teal flame embroidered onto the front. It matches his eye color perfectly.

It is your greatest creation.

He accepts it with a solemn mask guarding his emotions. Whatever he truly feels for your gift is buried deep inside of him, in a place that you can't reach.

You never once see him take it off.

 

. 

 

It’s a bright summer morning. You sit in the front of the cart, your hands firmly secured around the reins guiding two strong horses. Eren almost bounces in place beside you, and points excitedly to the birds perched on nearby trees; Armin rests against you, your shoulders touching, and watches the horses.

For once, they’re both content.

The feeling is contagious.

You leave Shiganshina with smiles on your faces.

(You’re the only one to look back.)


	2. they're calling at me, "come and find your kind"

On the first night, you park the cart on the outskirts of a small farming town just inside of Wall Maria. You veer off the worn dirt path, and set up camp in a place where your only companions are your two best friends, and the animals who call endless grasslands their home.

Armin unhooks the horses so they can graze while you and Eren dig into your supplies for dinner. It’s nothing more than handfuls of fresh fruit and cold canned beans, but good company makes the food taste better.

At one point, Eren gets up to change, and you can’t help but sneak glances at him. He hasn’t worn a shirt with short sleeves in years; even his summer nightshirts are longsleeved, but made of fabric so thin you can almost see through it.

When he takes off his shirt, you see it: his right arm, cut off at the elbow. The skin is perfectly smooth, rounded off as if he had simply been born that way.

Unlike you, he is wiry, soft, with a stomach that’s completely flat, and round, flabby arms. You are a solid brick of muscle, made to shield and protect people like him.

He catches you watching, and scowls as he tugs his shirt on.

 

.

 

It’s strange to think that you’re all tottering on the edge of physical adulthood. Both you and Eren shot up at the same time, and stay at almost identical heights as the days pass. Eren’s face begins to lose the round, soft baby fat around his cheeks that Carla would always pinch, and your waist tapers as your hips and chest flare outwards.

Armin lags behind, always a little too small for strangers to guess his age correctly.  Puberty has yet to fully visit him.

His shirts are looser now, though, and he now crosses his arms over his chest when he’s uneasy, as if guarding himself from prying eyes.

 

.

 

Eren always pays attention to whoever directs the horses. Even if he’s inside the cart, a small journal in his lap as he tries to control his shaky hand long enough to sketch a messy blue jay, his attention is directed elsewhere. He notes the way Armin holds the reins, the way you crack it more often when the sun is dim and the heat is bearable.

His need to be on your level, to have just as much control as you do, would be breathtaking to anyone else. To you, it’s simply another trait of his that you’ve come to accept.

“Teach me,” Eren says, his side pressed against Armin’s. You look up from your embroidery (one of Armin’s shirts; the lit candle, small but reliable, sewn onto his breast pocket is only half-complete) and see Eren’s hand slide over his, and squeeze it tightly. To anyone else, it’d be a gesture of affection.

To you, it’s a plea for control.

Armin stiffens. “I’m not sure if that’s a good idea—“

“ _—teach me._ ”

Armin gasps lightly, wincing in pain. Eren looks down to their hands. “Sorry,” he murmurs, and though the apology is genuine, so is his intent to learn. He continues watching Armin, leans in just a few centimeters. “I can do it,” he promises, “so trust me.”

“O-ok,” Armin says, finally relenting. He scoots over, allowing Eren to slide into the place he occupied. Armin instructs him with a gentle voice and steady movements.

Eren burns with joy.

 

.

 

The world within the walls is more than big enough for you. Eren asks if you can venture away from them, go deeper into Wall Maria’s territory. Neither you nor Armin ask why he wants to do this; the answer is completely obvious. He wants to know if there’s any place where he can’t see his cage.

Supplies are running low. All of the fresh fruit you made sure to stock up on is gone, and even your dry goods are beginning to dwindle.

What makes it worse is that the meager change you brought along is gone now, used up long ago on important items.

“We have no choice,” Armin says, looking pointedly at a small bag of constantly dwindling flour. “We’ll need to go into town and work until we’ve built up our savings again.”

“That’s fine,” you reply. “There should be plenty of work available.”

“For you two,” Eren mumbles, quiet enough for him to think that you wouldn’t hear. There’s a clear resentment in his voice, the same frustration that you know bubbles just underneath his skin. He’ll boil over, one day, and you’re not sure if you’ll be able to cool him down when the day comes.

Still, you tie the horses back to the cart, and head into town.

 

.

 

This town is huge. You had always thought of Shiganshina as a gigantic place, full of everything you could ever need, but this place is even bigger. It’s a wonder that it can still function as one cohesive unit at its size.

You don’t care to learn the name. It doesn’t matter; everyone knows it as a large port town, located right next to one of the biggest rivers flowing through Wall Maria’s territory. It’s become a center of trade, full of people from just about every village within the walls.

Here, no one gives you strange looks because of your appearance. No one stops to stare, no one gives any of you a second thought.

For you, it’s exhilarating; for Armin, a relief; for Eren, a blessing. Finally being able to blend in is a miracle.

At first, you search for work together. Armin stays away from jobs involving water, suggesting that you go to the heart of town. More people who need work done equal more opportunities.

 (“I’m not a strong swimmer,” he explains sheepishly, but you pick up on his uncertainty far too well to believe him).

“Eren, you don’t have to come along with us,” Armin says, looking over his shoulder to watch him. You follow his gaze. All of Eren’s attention is focused on the pebble he keeps kicking. It hobbles over the cobblestone path, bouncing on the rocks below and catching on the dips.

It hits the back of your foot, once, twice. You turn to him, eyebrows raised, and he mutters a half-hearted apology and stops.

“You can keep doing it,” you say. He grunts, but when you turn back around, the pebble _ting ting tings_ against the ground again.

You turn to Armin. “He wanted to come.”

“You don’t need to talk about me like I’m not right here,” Eren mutters to the ground. He goes strangely quiet a moment later, and even the pebble seems to lose all momentum. You and Armin continue on for a few more steps before finally giving into your combined curiosity and looking back.

Eren holds a small flyer in his hands, eyes wide as he gapes down at it. Armin’s curiosity grows in time to your apprehension. He scurries over with an eager, “what’s that for?” Your body moves almost of its own accord, your feet propelling you in a direction that you’re not entirely sure if you want to go towards.

His hands shake, making the text hard to read. Luckily, Armin manages to sparse out the meaning, and he explains it aloud. “It’s a propaganda poster,” he points to the ridiculous caricature of Lance Corporal Levi painted across the middle of the page in harsh, angry lines. “It’s asking people not to give the Scouting Legion their support, even if they’re in town.”

“They’re in town?” Eren echoes, hollowly. He refuses to look up.

“Not exactly. But what makes it special is the fact that some of the Scouting Legion’s highest ranking officers are all staying at the nearby base. This is just saying not to give them your support.” He sighs. “They’d have to come into town for supplies of their own, but with this kind of opposition, I think it’d be hard for them to accomplish anything.”

 

.

 

You get hired to move furniture for those who can’t do it for themselves.

Armin gets hired to calculate budgets for shopkeepers who can’t do the math themselves.

The pay isn’t much for either of you, but it works.

(Eren tries his best to get employed, spends hours just walking around begging for work, but all he ever gets is pity. You’re moving a box full of trumpets that gleam in the morning sun when you see an old woman dump a handful of money into his hand.

He looks at it, turning it over as if it can’t possibly be real, and cries tears that must scald.)

 

.

 

The first time you see that damned Scouting Legion cloak also happens to be the first time your vision flashes not red with rage, but green. The members wear it proudly, walking throughout town with their heads held high. They’re soldiers; the hope for humanity.

Many townspeople shout curses at them as they pass. Others stay silent, but their glares burn jagged holes into every single member of the Legion. It’s just them – the members of the Stationary Guard walk freely through the town. The patches on their jackets are not a curse, but an invitation for admiration.

“They killed my son,” one old woman spits bitterly, as you throw bags of her crops into the back of her cart. “He was such a good kid, and he died a week after joining. Those bastards couldn’t save his life, couldn’t save his remains, couldn’t save anything!” She does not cry, but her voice shakes. “And – and when I asked if his sacrifice meant something, the Commander himself stayed silent.”

Your throat is dry and cracked. Her pain and her resentment hit you much stronger than you would have expected. In another life, you could be this woman, unable to forgive the military for letting your family die for nothing.

You want to say something, but all you do is nod curtly.

“I’ve heard that they’re running out of supplies back at their base,” she says, laughing scornfully. Her face is worn and wrinkled, and it sags down when she stops to speak again. “Good riddance, I say! I may not be able to convince the king to cut off their funding, but at least I can prevent them from buying my crops.”

You throw the last bag of potatoes into the cart. “I’m finished,” you say, and then add, “would you like me to do anything else?”

The woman’s foul mood softens, and she shakes her head. “No, this is fine. Thank you so much for helping me out.” She digs into the purse hanging off her shoulder, and pulls out a much larger amount of money than you agreed to take the job for. Your jaw drops open the slightest bit. She can’t intend to give you that much for such a simple job.

But she does with a smile.

“I…I can’t possibly accept this much,” you say, frozen in place. “I think you must have counted wrong.”

“Not at all,” she replies, turning away from you. “Consider it an extra payment for listening to an old woman’s rants.”

You look down at your hand again. With this money, you won’t need to worry about food for a long time. “Thank you so much,” you whisper, wishing that there was a better way to show your gratitude.

 

.

 

That night, the three of you go out to eat. You find a nice restaurant, one with paintings covering every wall and food that supposedly rivals the dishes put in front of the king himself.

Eren’s tense as the waiter takes your orders, but once they leave, he relaxes, and puts his elbow on the table so he can cup his chin in his hand.

He looks out of place, clad in the only pair of nice pants he owns (plain black slacks) and one of your white button-down shirts. His arm is slightly longer than yours, so the bones of his wrist jut out awkwardly whenever he moves. You and Armin wear similarly nice clothing, but Eren’s never dressed up by choice, and you think the way he still carries himself, as if he’ll be attacked at any moment, is what makes the difference.

“So,” Eren begins, and it sounds casual enough at first for you to pay little mind, “recognize any members of the Scouting Legion from your class, _Armin_?”

He spits out his name like a curse. It makes a deep ache start in your chest, and spread through your body with each heartbeat.

“Eren-“ you begin sternly, but Armin raises a hand, and you fall silent. He does not look surprised, only hurt. His heart does not break, but the splinters Eren’s remark creates are no less important, no less painful.

“You and I both know that the trainees don’t graduate until next month,” Armin replies quietly.

The waiter returns with your meals, and you all eat in silence.

 

.

 

Armin is in charge of budgeting. While you sit in the grass and while Eren hunts around for absolutely nothing at all, Armin sits inside of the cart, papers surrounding him on all sides. He works tirelessly at it, charting numbers and balancing your meager savings.

After a few hours, his head pops out from behind the tarp and he calls you over excitedly. When you and Eren find empty spots to sit in, Armin begins.

“We have two choices, from how I see it,” he explains, “if we use up the last of our savings now, we’ll have enough supplies to last us a couple of weeks. But there’s plenty of work here, so we can stay a little longer and build up our savings. Which do you prefer?”

“The second,” Eren says immediately.

Your reply takes a bit longer. “Which one do you think is better, Armin?”

He stiffens slightly, not expecting you to ask his opinion at all.

(For such a sharp person, it makes no sense that he can’t see how much you respect his opinion. Armin’s one of the smartest people you’ve ever met. If only he could stop doubting himself long enough to see this.)

“The second,” he finally says. “I think we should go with the second.”

“Then we’re all in agreement. We’ll stay a little longer.”

 

.

 

Armin allots some money out of the budget so you can all buy things for yourselves.

He buys books banned by the king long ago on the underground market, and comes home positively beaming.

Eren buys bag after bag of birdseed.

You buy a trumpet for Eren

.

.

 

“How the hell am I supposed to play this thing with only one hand?” Eren spits out, turning the instrument over and over. His entire hand shakes when he holds it.

“It’s light enough for you to do it.”

Eren looks up at you through his bangs, eyes narrowed in distrust. He snorts unattractively. “Whatever you say, Mikasa. Why’d you buy me this, anyways?”

“You needed something to do while we’re out,” you explain. “I thought learning an instrument would help alleviate your boredom.”

He flinches, but tries to cover it with a cough that’s too suddenly violent to be real. “Um, yeah. I’ll try.”

 

.

 

In the corner of the cart, there is a mound of blankets. In this weather, there’s never any reason to go near it. Still, you grab the blankets and shake any dust loose, despite not knowing when you’ll actually use them again.

You hear a quiet _plink_ sound at your feet. Curious, you fold the blanket back up and drop to your knees, scanning the area around you for the cause of the noise.

You find the culprit, and gingerly pick it up.

A wooden Lance Corporal Levi stares impassively at you, splintered at the middle but hastily mended together. Bits of dried glue cling to his torso.

Your hands shake; your world spins. “Eren, _why_?” is all you can muster, even when your only company is this fucking carving.

You want to break it. You want to throw it against the wall, and watch it shatter into a million sharp, little splinters. You want to twist its head off for promising so much that Eren could never get.

But you think of Eren’s face when he would – without fail – discover what you did. You can picture him in your mind’s eye: his fist clenched so tightly that his fingernails dig crescent wounds into his palm, tears gathered at the corner of his eye, betrayal in his voice.

You gently set it back underneath the blanket, and from then on, avoid that corner.

 

.

 

Eren doesn’t always come into town with you. On the days that he doesn’t, you come back to a quiet cart (home, you want to call it, but you’re not sure if you should) and relax in the small mound of pillows and blankets you’ve built up over time.

Your sore muscles screech with exhaustion, but _something_ needs to occupy your attention.

You turn your head to look at Eren. He sits next to you, legs crossed as he tries to mend a hole in one of his shirts. You reach out to take it from him, but he yanks it away and scowls. “I don’t need your help, Mikasa,” he snaps.

Silence stretches on, only occasionally fractured by Eren’s swears whenever he pricks his finger or makes a mistake. He has to finish it by candlelight, and does it half as well as you could have done given half the time he used.

But you don’t say that. You’d only make him feel inadequate. Instead, you ask a more innocent question. “Have you practiced lately?”

You’d love to hear him play. Just the thought of resting your head against his knee as he shakily bleats out a simple tune is one that makes you hide a smile behind your scarf.

He grunts. You take it as a yes.

“Can I hear you play?”

“…Maybe later.”

 

.

 

Some mornings, Eren wakes up utterly exhausted. He spends his days with bags collecting under his eyes.

He says it’s because he hasn’t been sleeping well lately. He’s always had vivid dreams, dreams where Titans loom over him and destroy everything he’s ever held dear, but they never affected him as badly as they do now. The stifling warmth that pervades the air even at night is enough to drive the three of you to sleep curled away from each other, but you still reach for his hand when you close your eyes.

It takes you far too long to discover the truth.

 

.

 

Armin takes a job running errands for the Scouting Legion posted at the nearby base, and everything goes downhill from there.

“Mikasa,” he whispers, so late in the night that the candles went out long ago, “I’m worried about Eren.”

You glance over to him. He sleeps uneasily, tossing and turning in short, frustrated fits. He’s never been a quiet sleeper, but this is a new level of extremity. The thought that he isn’t truly asleep tugs urgently at your mind.

“I am too,” you mouth to him, hoping that Armin will be able to pick out your faint words. “He may be getting sick.”

Armin shakes his head. “Not that,” he mouths back. “When I was at the Scouting Legion base today, I overheard a few of the soldiers talking about the Lance Corporal himself allowed some crippled civilian to help them out.”

Your heart sinks into your stomach, and for a moment, you feel as if you are drowning.

 

.

 

It doesn’t take long before both you and Armin work running errands for the Scouting Legion. It’s a simple enough job, really – you show up at the base, get handed a list, and go to town. If you’re lucky, the Squad Leader will invite you in for tea and a snack, though ey’re more inclined to offer that bonus to Armin than ey are to you.

You tell Eren the good news. For a single second, he is completely frozen, and his sheer panic only affirms your suspicions.

You want nothing more than to grab him by the shoulders and shake him until some iota of sense enters his thick skull, but Armin rests his hands over yours, and you’re forced to withdraw.

 

.

 

Hanji Zoe is a very peculiar individual. For someone whose entire job is dedicated to slaughtering Titans, ey are incredibly enthusiastic about discussing and studying them.

Luckily for you, it’s an easy task to get em to open up about other subjects. You and Armin sit in eir study, each holding a cup of lukewarm tea as Armin hesitantly broaches the subject that’s kept both of you from getting a full night’s sleep the past few days.

“Um, Squad Leader, is it true that you’ve allowed a boy with one eye and arm to stay here, despite not being a soldier?”

Hanji bolts up, eyes alight with excitement. “You know Eren?”

You stiffen; Armin nearly spills his tea. He takes a shaky gulp, and sets it down on the table. “Yes. We’re his childhood friends.”

“Oh, really? What a coincidence! Or maybe…” Ey lift a hand to eir chin, and each rhythmic tap sends a wave of uneasiness crashing through your body, “you’re both here because of him.”

Armin looks away, and Hanji snaps eir fingers. “Bingo!” Ey say, delighted that ey’re correct.

“How did this start?” You ask. “Why are you allowing him to stay here?”

“It was Lance Corporal Levi that actually gave him permission to be here, not me. We found Eren sneaking around the base one night and arrested him for trespassing, but when Levi saw him, he freed Eren.” Hanji stretches back in eir seat, two legs coming off of the floor and causing the entire chair to wobble. Hanji pays no mind to it. “Said that a brat like him obviously couldn’t fight his way out of a paper bag, so treating him like a threat was pointless.”

“But why is he still here?” Armin asks.

“He begged us to let him stay,” Hanji answers. “He said that he’d do anything we wanted him to. Levi told him that he could stay only if he climbed up the walls of the building to the third floor.”

“And you let him do that!?” You snap, thinking of the walls outside, cobbled together by tightly sealed bricks. “What if he fell!? What if he hurt himself!?”

Granted, you could probably accomplish that without a problem. The walls of this base aren’t impossible to scale at all, but the fact that they practically forced Eren to do it (because you know Eren well, and you know that he doesn’t take no for an answer) sets flares of anger coursing through your body.

You make a mental note to find Lance Corporal Levi, and punch him right in the face. You’ll break his fucking nose for doing that to Eren.

“But he didn’t!” Hanji says, grinning. “I watched him as he climbed. It was pretty amazing! Besides, we could have saved him if he fell.”

You grit your teeth, and your face feels frozen in anger. You stand up so quickly that your chair topples to the ground behind you, but before you can move any further, Armin’s arms are around your waist and pulling you back down. Hanji watches you, eyes wide, and much less surprised than you would have hoped.

“Thank you for telling us, Squad Leader,” Armin says.

“Make him leave,” you say, practically spitting out your words, “he can’t keep playing soldier.”

Hanji puts down eir tea, and watches you with a somber expression. “I think you’d know better than I that I can’t make that happen. He’ll come to terms with reality before long.”

“Hanji’s right,” Armin mutters. “There’s not much we can do now.”

That won’t stop you from trying.

 

.

 

The moon is a thin sliver in the sky, and you use what little light it provides to watch Eren’s silhouette attempt to escape unnoticed. He tries to slip out of the back of the cart, but you surge forward and grab his arm, locking him in place. His hand grips a wooden beam; he has no way to fight back without losing his balance.

“Don’t,” you warn, your voice an ominously hissed whisper.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he says, refusing to face you.

“Liar.”

“I’m not a liar!”

“I know you’re going to the Scouting Legion’s base at night. I’m not an idiot,” you say. It’s a struggle not to shout, not to make a desperate attempt to beat some sense into him. The only thing that keeps you from doing so is Armin’s sleeping form just a couple meters away. You don’t want to wake him up.

“Stop trying to be mom.” His voice is flat, without any inflection of emotion within, and it hurts more than any physical wound ever could. Your grip weakens, and he shakes his stump of an arm free.

An unseasonably cold wind blows over you, making you shiver. You watch his retreating form meld into the darkness, and whisper to his back, “why? Why do you always insist on hurting yourself like this? Let me protect you for once, please.”

 

.

 

You and Armin mostly run errands for the Legion in town. Occasionally, you help with simple tasks around the base itself. There are never enough helping hands in this division, and even the pay is utterly pitiful, the chance to keep an eye on Eren keeps you coming back.

And Eren, as you soon learn, does all of the same tasks a soldier does. They’re simple enough: feeding horses, cleaning rooms; basic tasks that don’t require much skill or dexterity.

He also occasionally gets to sit in on training lessons. Those are the days that you find him giddy and excited, and wasting entire bags of birdseed by pouring too much on the ground at once.

He reaches out his right arm, trying to get them to use it as a perch, but they never do.

 

.

 

Levi is much smaller than you remember. The Levi of your childhood is a proud man, placed atop too high a pedestal to ever notice you. You never admired him half as much as Eren did, but his accomplishments earned your respect.

The Levi that stands before you now is a pathetic imitation of the grand figure of the past; a short, thin, rude thug of a soldier.

His lip curls in distaste when you block his path. “Move, you brat,” he orders.

From this close, every flaw of his is plainly visible. His teeth are a straight row of pearly white jewels, but his skin is marred with scarred over slits, and his eyes are ringed by black, as if he’s gone his entire life without sleeping. His head is covered by a crisp white handkerchief, but the hair underneath is limp and greasy.

_This_ , you think disgustedly, _is the pride and joy of the Scouting Legion._

“Are you deaf?” He looks up at you from underneath his hair. “Get out of my way.”

You pull your fist back, and punch him in the face.

Your fist grazes his cheek, just enough to leave a lovely bruise in a few hours, but your main target is his nose. There’s a sickening crunch of cartilage snapping out of place; it is music to your ears.

He recoils back slightly, but not nearly as far as you would expect. His feet stay rooted in place. He is a solid tree, and your blow was nothing more than the wind through his leaves.

He glares at you balefully, sending a shiver down your spine that is only accompanied by a wave of self-loathing.

The next thing you know, you are on the floor. Your face is pressed into the ground below, and his knee digs into your back.

“I know you’re close to that idiot Jeager, but even he isn’t stupid enough to do something like this,” he says. The lack of venom in his voice frightens you.

There’s a long list of people you hate. This includes: every single person that has taunted Eren or Armin, every adult that’s given you a condescending smile and a viciously spoken _sweetie_ when you’ve only ever wanted to be taken seriously, the bastards that took your parents away, those that treat you as a piece of meat to be ogled because you look different, every thief that tries to steal from you in the night.

But this man is currently at the very top.

No matter how hard you struggle, you cannot break free of his grasp.

“You’re a monster,” you spit out. “He’s idolized you ever since we were children! There’s no one in the world that he looks up to more than you, and yet all you’re doing is building up false hope for him.”

He grabs you by the hair, and slams your head down onto the floor. The world spins, and blood pools in your mouth.

You crane your head, ignoring the pain long enough to spit a thick gob of blood and spit onto his shirt. He grimaces.

He slams your head into the ground again, but it doesn’t wipe the smile from your lips.

“You and I both know that he’s the only one that can break his own delusion,” Levi says. “Or would you rather have him chase after this broken dream some other way? Would you rather have him sneak out on an expedition with us? He wouldn’t survive five minutes outside these walls, and I’m not enough of a bleeding heart to sacrifice my men to save one reckless kid.”

His words sting of harsh truth. You grit your teeth. There is no response you could give him.

“Exactly,” he says with a snort. “Let him break himself in a place where you and your little boyfriend can still pick up the pieces.”

He gets off of you, dusts his boots off, and walks away without another word.

Oh, if only looks could kill.

 

.

 

“I wonder how Lance Corporal Levi got that black eye,” Eren muses one day, saying his name like a fucking prayer. He’s comfortable enough now to not only walk with you to and from the base, but talk about that _bastard_ around you.

Armin looks over to you uneasily, and you motion for him to stay quiet.

“Who knows,” you say.

“I should ask Hanji. Ey’ll know,” Eren mutters absently. He’s not listening to you, and it earns him a punch in the shoulder.

“Ey might not.”

Eren shakes his head. “Hanji knows everything about Lance Corporal Levi.”

“Ey really do,” Armin pipes in. “Though that’s generally what happens when you’re that close.”

Eren’s eyes nearly bulge out of his head, and he freezes in place, staring at Armin with his jaw hanging wide open. He looks stupid. You almost hope he feels stupid. “Are you saying—“

“—I thought it was obvious,” Armin murmurs. “Everyone knows.”

“Everyone except me, apparently!” Eren protests, though he isn’t upset, only shocked. You gently tug on his hand, and he begins to walk again. “Wow, who would have thought that the two of them would be together.”

“Poor Hanji,” you say.

 

.

 

Despite how badly you want it to happen, the day that reality finally comes crashing into Eren is heartbreaking to watch.

Levi orders both you and Armin to clean Hanji’s room while ey’re out (“It’s a two person job, trust me,” he insists), but you can see a figure inside thanks to a crack in the open door.

You and Armin exchange uneasy looks, and walk in together.

It’s not Hanji within, but Eren, clad in eir uniform and standing in front of a full length mirror. The green Scouting Legion cloak is pooled at his feet.

He looks strange, wearing a uniform that doesn’t quite fit. It’s too loose in all the wrong places and too tight in others, and no matter which way he turns, it simply won’t look _right_. The belts go up too high on his legs; the jacket is too long; one sleeve hangs limply at his side. His regular clothes lay abandoned on the floor around him.

He looks over to you, and his lone eye is swimming with tears. It makes the flame on his eyepatch look duller, somehow, as if the embroidered flame is dying.

“Oh, Eren…” Armin mutters, already putting the pieces of the puzzle together in his mind. It takes you a few moments longer, but it still clicks nonetheless.

He must have snuck in here to try on Hanji’s spare uniform, knowing that ey wouldn’t be here, and expecting to be completely alone.

“Hey guys,” he says shakily. His attempt at a smile looks more like a grimace. “I can’t get the cloak on no matter how hard I try, haha…”

You wouldn’t wish this kind of realization on anyone, especially not the boy you hold so dear. Years of denial and anger slam into him all at once. It’s a wreck that you can’t look away from.

As much as you hate to admit it, Levi was right. He was right all along.

Armin’s the first to rush to Eren’s side, and wraps him in a tight hug. “Come on, Eren,” he murmurs, reaching up to stroke Eren’s hair. “I’ll help you change into your normal clothes.”

You walk towards them, and pick up the cloak, carefully folding it and setting it on Hanji’s desk. You hide the winged emblem within the folds.

In another world, you’re certain that this cloak would be Eren’s only defense against his cruel surroundings. Here, it’s only a painful reminder of what he can never be.

“Eren, I’m so sorry,” you whisper. “I’m sorry for everything.”

 

.

 

You leave town the next day. The cart’s rickety movement along a worn dirt path has never been more comforting than it is now.

Eren leaves the wooden statue of Levi behind.


End file.
